Garbage is complicated business in Germany. When it’s trash day, you will see a rainbow of garbage cans and trash bags lining the streets waiting for the appropriate garbage collectors to retrieve their specific pile of trash. If you put something in the wrong place and the garbage collectors see it, they will leave your trash there along with a note. We do our best to sort things correctly, but when even the Germans who have lived here their whole lives can’t agree on what goes in which can, we can only put so much effort into it. I do appreciate how much Germany does for the environment, although I know I will probably never know how to throw out garbage here with 100% accuracy.